CAVE AT MULLYON.
On the narrow neck of land uniting the Lizard peninsula to the mainland stands Helston, formerly guarded by a castle that has long since disappeared, and named, we are told, from the great block of granite that once formed the portal of the infernal regions. The master of those dominions once, when he went abroad, carried his front door with him, and was met in this neighborhood by St. Michael, whereupon there was a "bit of a fight" between the two adversaries. His Satanic Majesty was defeated, and, dropping his front door, fled. The great boulder, which thus named the town, is built into a wall back of the Angel Inn, and they hold an annual festival on May 8th to commemorate the event. Loo Pool cuts deeply into the land to the westward of Helston, and the district south of it is an elevated plateau, bare and treeless generally, but containing many pretty glens, while the shore is lined with sequestered coves. Here grow the Cornish heath-flowers, which are most beautiful in the early autumn, while the serpentine rocks of its grand sea-cliffs, relieved by sparkling golden crystals and veins of green, red, and white, make fine ornaments. Upon the coast, southward from Helston, is Mullyon Cove, a characteristic specimen of the Lizard scenery. A glen winds down to the sea, displacing the crags to get an outlet, and disclosing their beautiful serpentine veins. A pyramidal rock rises on one hand, a range of serpentine cliffs on the other, and a flat-topped island in front. In the serpentine cliffs is the portal of a cave that can be penetrated for over two hundred feet, and was a haunt of the smugglers in former days, the revenue officers generally winking at them for a share of the spoils. We are told that in the last century the smugglers here had six vessels, manned by two hundred and thirty-four men and mounting fifty-six cannon—a formidable fleet—and when Falmouth got a collector sufficiently resolute to try to break them up, they actually posted handbills offering rewards for his assassination. At one place on shore they had a battery of six-pounders, which did not hesitate to fire on the king's ships when they became too inquisitive. The coast is full of places about which tales are told of the exploits of the smugglers, but the crime has long since become extinct there because it no longer pays. South of Mullyon are the bold headlands of Pradanack Point and Vellan Head, while beyond we come to the most noted spot on the Lizard peninsular coast.
PRADANACK POINT.
KYNANCE COVE AND LIZARD HEAD.
